On this week’s Blank Canvas, we welcome our stand-in host Dr. Craig Smith, Chair of School of English at the University of The Bahamas (UB), who is spearheading the first annual UB Spring Book Fair and Literary Festival set to take place over three days starting Thursday, March 30 through Saturday, April 1st.
The Blank Canvas welcomes US Embassy Nassau’s Public Affairs Officer, Penny Rechkemmer and the winners of the MLJ Jr photo contest and Transforming Spaces founder, Jay Koment, DAF curator, Rashad Adderley, and NAGB assistant curators Natalie Willis and Richardo Willis speaking about this year’s event.
Leaving the visual arts aside for a week, the “Blank Canvas” turns to musical arts and focuses on the festival “Eleuthera All That Jazz.” The Founder and Chairwoman, Patricia Leigh-Wood, comes on the show to speak about how the event was founded and its goal: to expose more Bahamian children to world-class music and to give them the opportunity to learn about different instruments. Also joining us is musician and “Jazz Cat” Adrian D’Aguilar, who has participated in all the editions of the festival for the last six years.
This year’s National Exhibition (NE8) has extended beyond the walls of the NAGB to include another art space: Hillside House on Cumberland Street. Three of the artists from the NE8 OFFsite join the “Blank Canvas” to speak about their interventions, all of which deal with the issue of being a woman in general and in The Bahamas, specifically, post-referendum. This week we welcome, Cynthia Rahming, Natalie Willis and Alicia Wallace.
On tonight’s “Blank Canvas,” our host is joined by three Bahamians in the studio discussing various aspects of history and how it is addressed through different artistic practices.
Participating artists, Keisha Oliver and Lowree Tynes from the NE8, currently on at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas, join Amanda on “Blank Canvas” tonight.
Continuing with focussing on participating artists in the latest National Exhibition, NE8, which is on show at the NAGB until April 16th, “Blank Canvas” host Amanda Coulson meets with three local practitioners, Dede Brown, Jordanna Kelly and Sue Katz-Lightbourn whose work starts with a personal idea but reflects a greater global concern.
On this week’s “Blank Canvas,” we meet Ryan Turnquest, a man drawn back to his art practise to mourn and memorialise the passing of his brother. After obtaining an Associate’s Degree in Art from the College of The Bahamas, Turnquest entered Savannah College of Art and Design in 2007 where he studied Industrial Design but left his studies early to return home to support his children and family in their business.
Continuing to focus on artists participating in this year’s NE8 (Eighth National Exhibition), NAGB’s Director, Amanda Coulson, is joined this week by artists Margot Bethel and Leanne Russell, both of whose work uses diverse materials, creating immersive or interactive pieces, both of which discuss gender roles or perceptions of gender in our society.
This evening we have a special Blank Canvas episode out of Kingston, Jamaica!! Taping in the musically historic Creative Sounds Studio on Mountain View Road (also notable as being located next to the Artist-in-Residency programme New Local Space/NLS operated by Deborah Anzinger, whose been a guest on the show!), BC host Amanda Coulson, meets with the Director of The National Art Gallery of Jamaica (NGJ), Veerle Poupeye (far left) and Trinidadian artist/curator/writer Christopher Cozier.